Would you step onboard the transporter pad?

No thanks, I'll take the bus

Thought you'd never ask!

So you're at the technology fair and on display is the world's first teleport, Star Trek style. As we all know, it scans the original, destroying it in the process, and reconstitutes it elsewhere. Lots of people are trying it out and they all seem unharmed by the experience. You're offered a trip to anywhere and back again. What do you say?

Nope, but I would figure out how to split the stream so to speak so another copy is created elsewhere. Tom Riker will not be alone. That, and I would be afraid of something like Whipping star happening....

Yes. The person who emerges at the end of the process will still be me in every way that counts--same looks, memories, beliefs, and skills. It'd be a different story if that wasn't the case, but otherwise I don't have a problem being dematerialized in one place and rematerialized somewhere else. The cells in my body now aren't the same ones I was born with anyway...

..I won't mind having my suddenly truncated life continued by my identical twin. Especially if the teleporter really takes me "anywhere" and back, rather than just a few thousand kilometers away like its Trek counterpart. With suitable protection, I'd love to do a quick tour of the various highlights of our own solar system, then take a trip to somewhere spectacular and distant like the place in "Where No One Has Gone Before".

We have seen in "Realm of Fear" that a person's consciousness continues unharmed throughout the transport process, so I don't see the downside here. You don't die and get replaced by a duplicate of you; your *body* is duplicated, but your mind - soul, if it were - stays the same.

We have seen in "Realm of Fear" that a person's consciousness continues unharmed throughout the transport process, so I don't see the downside here. You don't die and get replaced by a duplicate of you; your *body* is duplicated, but your mind - soul, if it were - stays the same.